Did I mention that there is a map?

Tucked into the back cover of the Special edition and sewn into the Standard edition, there is a map of the trails of Corriganville Regional Park. It also shows the collection locations of the specimens in the book. Also, all the sites of the old movie sets from when the area was a popular movie ranch and location for many cowboy movies and television shows.

It was printed with five polymer plates except...

a couple pieces of type somehow didn't make on to the plates and had to be printed from handset type in interesting arrangements in the bed of the press.

It's a book.

Where Stucco Meets Chaparral 

Like the self-taught naturalists of the Victorian era, my recent work examines the intersection of my artistic and scientific interests by collecting and cataloging the natural world. I am inspired to record, interpret and celebrate nature.

In my new artist’s book I observe the natural world around me. Where Stucco meets Chaparral explores the trails though the sandstone formations, chaparral and oak woodlands that surround my home in an arid inland valley in Southern California and my connection to the landscape. 

Where Stucco meets Chaparral is a printed herbarium of local California native plants with stories of local and natural history and personal observation gathered during many years of daily walks. Detailed images of seven indigenous plants are letterpress printed in multiple colors in tight registration through their seasonal life cycles that contrast hand-carved representations of the environmental context where they prevail.

Where Stucco Meets Chaparral is published in three states:

The Standard Edition, numbered 1 - 25, is 108 pages and is printed on Somerset bound in the simplified style with printed abaca wrapped boards and a cloth spine.

 

In the Special  Edition, numbered 26 - 60, each signature consists of a folio of custom abaca paper by Katie MacGreagor wrapped around a Somerset book wove folio with a quarto-folded sheet of handmade kozo forming the center spread.  The books are longstitched sewn with waxed hand-dyed linen thread through a cover of rough heavyweight Twinrocker unbleached abaca. The spine is reinforced with a folded piece of green goat parchment. A bone button wrapped with a braid of linen thread forms the closure. 

It's a binder's life for me.

After printing for nearly a year, Where Stucco Meets Chaparral went into the binding stage.

The terrifying first step – trimming down the sheets. Then collate, press, pierce, sew, etc.